Pickpocket (1997)

In Jia Zhangke’s Pickpocket (1997) aka Xiao Wu, which was shot in the Chinese town of Fenyang (where Zhangke grew up), there are a few street scenes where something happens, often to the main character, and people passing by begin to stop and look; there’s a feeling that these are not extras, but actual people wondering what’s going […]

Animal (2023)

Animal (2023) is a film about work and it’s about that mid-life crisis feeling of the party leaving you behind. Director Sofia Exarchou focuses on ‘animateurs’ employed by a resort hotel on Crete; the hotel is not high class or exclusive, it looks affordable enough for older Europeans as a holiday destination. The animateurs are […]

Habit (1995)

First time I heard about Larry Fessenden’s Habit (1995) was through a glowing Roger Ebert review I remember reading. As a low budget indie with zero stars, it never received an Australian cinema release, or even a video release, or possibly I just missed out since I was in high school. There’s an indie movie […]

Matador (1986)

Pedro Almodovar’s film, Matador, has a provocative opening salvo, with the character of Diego Montes (Nacho Martinez) sitting alone at home, masturbating in a chair to clips of murder and death scenes from slashers and giallo thrillers (I was delighted to recognise the Jess Franco film, Bloody Moon, in the mix). Shifting from this conflation of auto-erotic […]

The Intruder (2004)

As a filmmaker, Claire Denis offers elliptical narrative experiences, introducing us to a few characters, observing their faces and their movements, and only gradually revealing the connections and histories between them. The Intruder (2004) is even more elliptical than her other films, complicating our understanding with the inclusion of dreams and recurring figures who may be more […]